AbstractThis paper presents a novel method to detect and distinguish ten frequently used audio effects in recordings of electric guitar and bass. It is based on spectral analysis of audio segments located in the sustain part of previously detected guitar tones. Overall, 541 spectral, cepstral and harmonic features are extracted from short time spectra of the audio segments. Support Vector Machines are used in combination with feature selection and transform techniques for automatic classification based on the extracted feature vectors. With correct classification rates up to 100% for the detection of single effects and 98% for the simultaneous distinction of ten different effects, the method has successfully proven its capability - performing on isolated sounds as well as on multitimbral, stereophonic musical recordings.